The Govenator Arnold Schwarzenegger takes a walk on Ocean Ave with his wife Maria Shriver and daughter Christina Schwarzenegger in Santa Monica, CA.

Hot Topics-Arnold’s Love Child – The View

Maria Shriver Asks – How Do You Handle Transitions in Your Life?

Arnold Schwarzenegger admitted to his wife several months ago that he had fathered a child about 10 years ago with a member of their household staff. Maria moved out, but has not filed for divorce. In the you tube clip above she comments:

“Like a lot of you I’m in transition: people come up to me all the time, asking, what are you doing next?” she said, adding: “It’s so stressful to not know what you are doing next when people ask what you are doing and they can’t believe you don’t know what you are doing.”

“I’d like to hear from other people who are in transition,” she said. “How did you find your transition: Personal, professional, emotional, spiritual, financial? How did you get through it?”

Mrs. Shriver has asked for spiritual input and I personally think that unless she gets the spiritual help that she needs then she will end up in the divorce court. I am starting a series on how a marriage can survive an infidelity. My first suggestion would be to attend a “Weekend to Remember” put on by the organization “Family Life” out of Little Rock, Arkansas. I actually posted this as a response to Mrs. Shriver’s request on you tube.

I got a lot out of this article and I wanted to share it with you and here is the last portion below:

Her Husband Wouldn’t Speak to Her—for Three Years

“I can’t believe we’re having so much fun in our 60s”

The following years were sweet for the Sims. “We thoroughly enjoyed our time together,” June says. “We talked and talked.” They took rides together in a golf cart on their 160 acres and walked hand-in-hand through the woods. June describes Lamar as being more patient, more understanding, more affectionate—different in every way. At one point Lamar said, “I can’t believe we’re having so much fun in our 60s.”

In their later years, the Sims enjoyed riding their golf cart around their 160 acres.

“He was always telling me, ‘I love you,’” June says, “and every night he’d go to bed and say, ‘I really appreciate all you do.’”

On June 21, 2004, Lamar and June repeated their marriage vows in a pastor’s home—just as they had done 41 years earlier. “I was about in tears,” June says, “and so was he because it was so precious that we were doing it again.” As Lamar and June drove back to their home from the pastor’s house, they talked about the good times in their marriage.

In July 2006 Lamar became short-winded when he walked from his parked truck into the house. With June’s prompting, he saw a doctor who sent him to an oncologist, who found cancer in the spleen.

“The doctor said his spleen had to go,” June says. “It was six times larger than it was supposed to be.” Lamar’s spleen was removed a few weeks later, but other complications set in and, as June says, “It was all downhill.”  Lamar died from pneumonia just five months after visiting the oncologist.

“I wondered why God gave you to me”

Realizing that time was short for Lamar, daughter Carol had a heart-to-heart conversation with him. “I know that you know that everybody is a sinner,” she said, “and we need Jesus and He’s the only way to heaven.” She asked Lamar to ask Jesus into his life if he had any doubts. Unable to speak, Lamar nodded.

Although not sure when Lamar actually accepted Christ, June has peace about his salvation. During the last year of his life he told June that he had been watching her sleep. “I wondered why God gave you to me,” he said. The next morning he repeated, “I just wonder why God gave you to me.”

“I’ve asked God that same question,” June says. “I think it was so he could get saved.”

During Lamar’s final hours, June and their four grown children sat with Lamar in the hospital and sang songs, beginning with “Amazing Grace” and continuing through every hymn they could recall from memory.   They read Scripture to him and reminisced over the good times they had enjoyed over the years.

June remembers leaning across Lamar and whispering into his ear that she loved him and appreciated all that he had done for her. He nodded.

Lamar took his last breath at 4:30 a.m. on Monday, January 22, 2007, just five months after he first visited the oncologist.

“We don’t want to miss out on what God has to teach us, even during the hard times”

June is grateful that she did not divorce Lamar … and so are her children and grandchildren.

The Sims set an example of commitment and faithfulness in marriage for their family.

At one time, daughter Wanda and her husband separated. “I wanted out,” Wanda says. Then she remembered how June would tell her to put her feelings aside and seek what God wanted her to do.

“Because my Mama could go through what she did with Daddy,” she says, “[I knew] the Lord would also give me the strength to be able to make it through with my husband.” Wanda has a strong marriage today and attributes that to her mother’s example.

June and Lamar’s youngest daughter, Shirley, says that her mother’s faithfulness also changed her life. “The Lord used it to bring me to a personal relationship with Him,” she says, “to start dealing with my anger and bitterness, to bond my husband and me together … and basically turn my life 180 degrees.” Shirley says her mom’s example has caused her to look at her own marriage as a life-long covenant.

June’s children have seen what God did in their parents’ lives and they are striving to be what God wants them to be. They’ve all said, “We don’t want to miss out on what God has to teach us, even during the hard times.”

Throughout the last seven years of Lamar and June’s marriage, their children expressed over and over how glad they were that their parents were still together. After Lamar died, they all sent June a note that said, “Thank you for hanging in there and showing what real love is.”

“He was the spice of my life”

Today June cherishes a letter that Lamar gave her shortly before he died. He wrote, “I would like to thank you for all the good and wonderful years. Words can’t tell you how I really feel.  Our love just grows and grows.”

In December 2007 June mailed a Christmas letter to her friends and family that expressed what God had done in her life and marriage. “Especially during those last seven years, Lamar and I shared such a deep, passionate love relationship,” she wrote. “He was my soul mate, my lover, my best friend. He was the spice of life. He kept me laughing.

“The days and months immediately following Lamar’s death were especially tough. The silence was deafening. I missed (and still do) hearing him say each morning, ‘I love you, Darling,’ or each night, ‘Thank you for all you do,’ or ‘The best thing I ever did was to marry you.’”

Chip Ingram – How to Break Through Conflict (pt 3)

It’s hard to keep your objectivity when you are hurt, wounded or tired. When we lose objectivity, there are several common responses to conflict that just don’t work and can even make things worse. Here are a few more conflict resolution tools from guest speaker Tim Lundy. Download the full message for free at the Venture Christian website: http://www.venturechristian.org/files/sermons2/t032011.mp3

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The clip above has some material that originally came from a video from Family Life. I have mentioned this organization several times in this post. Contacting “Family Life” (out of Little Rock, Arkansas) would be a great place for Arnold and Maria to begin their recovering. I am hoping that Maria realizes that this family is worth saving. It will take a lot of forgiveness and she will have to turn to Christ for his supernatural help to make it happen.